The Force that Binds Us
by thedibbler
Summary: Even in a galaxy far, far away, Asami is up to no good. Or is he just a misunderstood Jedi?


Chapter 3: The Force that Binds Us

_"No," his master had said, "there is no dark side. But even Jedi have their dark moments… choices they might regret. Sometimes those moments swallow them forever."_  
_"Have you had dark moments, Master?" the padawan replied, looking into his master's eyes which seemed so dark as to absorb all the stars in the galaxy._  
_"Yes, boy…I've had a lot of them."_

*30 BBY 

_Somewhere in the Varada Sector_

The merchant known as Asami (to his face) or _The Rogue (_behind his back) relaxed into a trance, balancing in a crouch, his muscles preparing to jump the moment the ship touched the ground. Piloted by his seasoned clone CL-9542-K(ay)'s, his ship _The Insurgent_ barely jostled when they hit the low atmosphere and the after-burners kicked on with a dull whine of the engines.

His clone's battle-scarred _Jaig Eyes** _covering his helmet seemed to blink at him in the moon's odd purple light. Like most clones, he rarely showed the face underneath the helmet, and this clone in particular seemed particularly attached to his helmet (and his blaster).

The _'K'_ in his name was the unusual designation for an unusual clone, added by Asami when altering the clone to his specifications, by himself specifically. This clone's dormant Force powers became enhanced by the midi-chlorians (so said the myth Asami started himself). And in truth he played with the clone's DNA, like a child would with a favorite toy, rewriting it for a future use.

A future he'd seen in nightmares and planned to change by force if necessary. 

Prepare for landing, Lord Asami.  
**Understood.** He adjusted his stance a little, his foot humming along with K's inner song that ran through his head whenever he prepared for a landing: The Espa Band's current hit…whatever the name….he couldn't pronounce it, so it didn't really matter.  
The song echoed and then coiled around his brain like a worm. 

__**I don't need to be reminded of Tatooine, thank you.**

Sorry. K grew silent, his connection with Asami's mind ceased with a little click.  
This _'K'_ (PROTOTYPE) could read Asami's mind (a plus), but couldn't communicate otherwise, not with anyone who communicated the old fashioned way – with plain speech.

This _'K'_, however, could use his tongue in rather creative ways (another plus) and like most clones couldn't procreate (yet another plus). 

The poor clone had a girl (and ? of various species) in every spaceport and had had every known galactic VD to prove it. Luckily, they were all curable by medicine, death or insanity. 

This is how he found CL-9542-K(ay) last night, with his helmet still attached to his head, sleeping peacefully in the lap of a pleasure girl from some outer planet after a night of debauchery to celebrate living another day. Asami roused him as gently as he could (which wasn't gently) and left another system behind (and one very satisfied girl).  
Even hungover, CL-9542-K's touched down so gently that Asami didn't realize they'd landed until he felt the dirt underneath summon him to open his mind. Asami reached back, the moon's heart felt warm and trembled like a candle moving by a child's breath.  
It called to him.  
He'd been following that little flicker in the dark for six months, chasing his padawan attached to that light…  
...and now it burned bright as a star.  
_Dark One…your arrival is expected but mind you tread lightly._ The moon echoed with a stir of childlike voices. Only celestial bodies with ethereal power could remove the mask he wore. He felt his eyes grow hard as the power revealed itself and pushed back against him, like gravity on a dying star. He adjusted his golden hued lightsaber as it banged against his thigh. A red lightsaber, he considered, was just for showing off how dark you were and how much you enjoyed that so-called easy path to power.  
Getting here wasn't easy.  
**Betraying your brothers was never easy.**

_6 MONTHS EARLIER_  
Kastolar Sector  
His newly constructed saber cannibalized from his master's double-bladed weapon floated into his hand, and he examined it with the eyes of a warrior.  
"How proudly my dead master had carried this weapon." He said to the form hanging in the corner.  
The form answered with a gentleness of a lover's touch in his mind. His temper cooled. How proudly your master fell to his doom. Was it in silence? Leaving the weapon behind? How convenient.  
**Yes, it was. **He answered, using the same gentle tone with the creature.  
He turned the hilt over, feeling the weight and the power within. It continued humming happily as if enjoying Asami's hand around the yellow painted hilt. It didn't look anything like his master's former blade.  
"In the end, I think it killed him," he had said to the weapon expert, who watched him examine his creation with brilliant glowing eyes. "Well, that the official story."  
I don't hear of Jedi's tripping often. Especially masters of his caliber.  
**Oh?**  
He powered on the blade then, appreciating the sound of fear rumbling from the Experts throat. The light from the blade pulsed, alternating between yellow and white. He tested it on the barrier separating him from falling into the gas planet below, watching the metal pieces explode in the scant atmosphere.  
Is Lord Asami spinning this tale in confidence, or shall I add it to my collection of anecdotes that I might let slip out of my lips…you know how I enjoy persuasion. The Expert's thoughts had flown to him, caught on the wind coming out of his giant square-shaped nostrils.  
"Shall I unbind your lips, and have your master angered that your mouth is free?" he replied with amusement. His eyes flicked the rounded circle sewn shut with the gentle threads of a ReFlykued Yonwes, which could only be broken by a specific song, sung in perfect harmony.  
I'm sure you have a beautiful sex organ. But Master is wise to sew my mouth closed, as if it was free, I'd be sucking it.  
"Of course I do and of course you would."  
Of course you do and of course I would. the Expert had mimicked. What would a celibate Jedi know of such things."  
He knew too much about the pleasure houses of the outerworlds.  
"I know that even slaves deserve pleasure. Does your master ever pleasure you?" He enjoyed the sound of his voice reverberating off the high walls of the room. He took a casual walk around, noting the lack of décor. "Not that I care, really."  
When it pleases him to do so. Do you care?  
"Mnnnh," he had groaned out loud, testing for the right resonance, teasing the Expert's will with a gentle probing of his mind. The creature groaned with a loud erotic moan, deep from whatever counted as his lungs.  
The sound rumbled the piping in Asami's own ship and the droids floating around stopped their buzzing suddenly. The creature's moan died with an echo. "He is wise to have bound your mouth, or your powerful voice might fall into the wrong hands."  
Wrong hands? Yours perhaps?  
"I think not." He had muttered. Throwing credits as his parting shot, Asami used his dark powers on the unsuspecting creature, and with his new saber at his side, he christened it in a sea of green liquid, in the soup of the Expert's life-force.  
Asami…you're a Sith…aaahhhh…

Those had been the last thoughts of the (so-called) Expert with the sewn shut mouth, as Asami casually tossed the pieces of him over the railing into the coldness of the gas planet below.

The repurposed saber banged his thigh again as he stepped lightly on the firm yet slightly spongy ground and the flowers bent away from him in reverence as he parted the canopy of finely woven threads in various shades of yellow and blue. The canopy also fell away, running in fear of Asami's large frame.  
I've got a bad feeling about this. Muttered Kay, his weapon at the ready. He's supposed to be here.  
**Steady.** He commanded. **It's an odd hour.**  
The voices of the moon continued, ignoring Asami's request for silence. _The ones he loved betrayed him. _The moon spoke again with an accent he couldn't place, although it sounded like his home world's language, one of the forgotten and very old dialects taught only in books.  
**They are dealt with.** he answered the moon.  
_I see. And now that you've found him, Dark One, would you hinder his light under your shadow? Or do you seek to right all the wrongs the universe has trusted you with?_  
"He is mine," he said aloud. "I want nothing other than that."  
_I doubt your words._  
Asami closed his eyes, trying to block out the (nagging) voice of the moon beneath him, but it whispered words he couldn't understand. He concentrated, closing his eyes allowing the vision to manifest. The fog melted away to reveal a figure shielded by a purple colored veil. The form's thoughts seemed guarded.  
Aki-hito starlight colored head bobbed to some music Asami couldn't hear. Winged creatures flew around him, their wings folding up and disappearing into the dying mist, a faint chirping sound coming from their pointed lips. He'd never seen creatures like them, except in holograms. His tongue didn't have a word for the hovering bits of fluff, although some had called them 'birds', he thought the word unworthy and harsh for the odd creatures.  
"You are indiscreet, adored one," he spoke distinctly, his ears reverberating with the almost forgotten sound of his voice. The boy turned and frowned. Asami's hand went to his light saber, should something stir and catch him unwary. His senses scanned what his eyes could not see, and the young man's breath caught as Asami felt the first slight resistance of the young boy's power.  
_This is better. _the boy thought, his mind unshielded, his voice sounding tinny and hollow in the nothingness of the walkway. Asami saw such power from his words as the boy's mind reached out and called to him, pulled at him, like he was held captive by the moon's gravity.  
"_Aki-hito…Aki-hito doesn't want…he…he…can't watch you die."_  
If felt like his own heartbeat as the boy's faint power hit him like angry words and rapid fists against his chest as big drops blended with his bath water.  
**How is being a slave to the Hutt's better?** His own gloved hands melted into anger, his eyes pulsed as the connection between them wavered. His heart echoed the fluttering of Aki-hito's fear. Asami's thought waves looked invisible to others, but to him, they looked like little ripples in a body of water.  
This vision was starting to fade and with it, he felt what little of the heart he had lurch until the boy was now hidden in shadow.  
The mist parted briefly as the boy opened his mouth, as if he had influenced the air with his very breath.  
Aki-hito is not a slave. And you…you are not a Sith. the boy thought quickly back in Galactic Basic, his mind stumbling over the word _Sith. _His thoughts burned into Asami's mind, little sparks erupted behind his eyes.  
Asami felt his smile crook. **I will fall without you.**  
The boy's face turned red. The image faded, as if blocked by giant hands, shielding Asami's mind from further intrusion on the boy's bathing ritual. Asami's chest tightened and his gaze fixed on the empty spot where the boy had stood. He stood there ignoring the pings and pops of the droid floating nearby until his mind and then his eyes caught a small dot that became a bigger dot, until a round dot of a man stood before him, his robes catching on his flat feet.  
"You disturb my sleep, Lord Ryu." The fat man snorted and looked like he'd just eaten a Wild Hothhair (the big greasy ones), and it was still travelling down his gullet as he burped. Somehow, the air expelling from his mouth made him walk faster.  
He dismissed Kay with a flick of his mind and watched the uniform disappear into the ship, the telepathic connection faded.  
He opened his mouth to speak his tongue swelling in the moist heat. "You have something of mine, so I came at my convenience…which was right away." his voice echoed and something stirred in the shadows, in the corners. Asami reached out, but only felt a little furry animal, its nighttime foraging disturbed by his touch. The animal chirped and bounded away.  
He crossed his arms in impatience.  
"You will start a crusade, I think, the ends you have gone to claim him." The man's face crooked to the left and right, then a flap of skin wrinkled, exposing the man's third eye. It blinked rapidly before he covered it with a pale hand and excused himself with a snort.  
"Then so be it." He said with irritation.  
"Keep us out of the war, if you would." He waved his hand and Asami followed, his steps stirring the dust caking the walkway. The fat man moved fast for a fat human and Asami quickened his steps. The air around them felt haunted with the whispers of the pests living in the Third Eye's outer chambers. He followed the fat man with the odd manners, trying not to step on the robes that trailed behind him.  
_You would start a war over a slave._ The whispering otherworldly voices continued, plaguing Asami's steps. He ignored the eyes blinking at him from the crevices in the hallway, judging him with their thoughts.  
"The last war, I'm sure." he answered.  
**I am here.** He called out to Aki-hito, yet the boy remained hidden behind a veil of darkness, shadowed and sheltered by the Third Eye and the moon's gentle protectiveness, shielding Aki-hito from the Order's Seekers.  
"Funny, that's what they said about the previous war." The fat man burped again and cleared his throat as Asami's force powers gently urged the man to quicken the process of _'negotiations.'_  
"You are a lucky man." Asami said. The man's mind weakened under Asami's _gentle _persuasion. His eyes clouded and his face slacked until he appeared frozen in time.  
"Yes. Yes. Yes, I am a lucky man." He said, as if he suddenly realized he must agree to whatever Asami said. "Uh…you're lucky that the Hutts like me, or else the boy would still be on Tatooine, dancing his round ass off… where you can't get at him, I think."  
"I am grateful to you."  
"You are grateful to me." He parroted.  
"I'll consider letting you live." He broke his hold, too angry to continue the game further.  
The fat man's eyes suddenly cleared. "Then I am the one who is grateful at this juncture. But…uh….pay the droid…on the way out if you would." The fat man pulled at the robes still entwined under his feet. "Wait here and I will fetch it."  
"It?" He felt his eyes grow hard and the man gasped. How easy it would be to kill him, to cut him down with a quick…slightly quick slice of his blade through his fat, gassy stomach.  
"The boy, then?" he corrected, his face draining of its color until it mimicked the statues peering at him from the corner.  
The fat man blinked and stared blankly as Asami's power touched at some memory of the fat man's mother lovingly singing to him and erased it forever.  
"I may have to reconsider…the stay of my hand." He fists clenched and the man's hand flew to his throat and then suddenly lowered.  
Asami bowed swiftly, as if in final answer to a question he didn't want to answer.  
The man blinked with all three eyes.  
"If you would fetch Aki-hito." He reminded.  
"Huh." The fat man huffed off in a state of confusion, disappearing with as few words as possible. The here in _wait here_ was a room with some kind of writing on the walls, not particularly interesting as waiting rooms go. He licked his upper lip, noting the sweat already developing on this sticky hot moon. He longed for the chill of space, with the warm boy wrapped in his arms.  
Of holding what the Order had forbidden.  
The air grew thicker as his visions of the boy came again, strengthening as he felt his boy's presence, sending out his power and waiting somewhere in the darkness where he couldn't drive his way through. Asami's eyes grew heavy as the power overwhelmed him, as if he were lying in a shallow warm pool with a cool wrap on his head.  
He opened his eyes and the vision grew stronger, more real. The vision coughed and shrugged. "Asami…you are alive." He said with surprise.  
"Are you sorry?" Asami tried to smile, but the boy was looking out the window at the distant landing bay where his shipped stood ready. His mind guarded from Asami's probing questions.  
"Sorry? I mean…the visions…sometimes…I couldn't tell…if…"  
**If they were real?** He finished.  
The boy bristled despite the warm air around them and made a noise that sounded like laughter caught with sadness. They told me many times you were dead. Akihito's eyes flicked nervously from left to right. His eyelashes flickered.  
**They told me the same, but I never believed them. **  
"You are real? Not a hologram? Not a vision?" Akihito talked into his fists, half of his questions coming out jumbled with inner turmoil and confusion, disbelief shielding the truth before him.  
**You know I am real. I will prove I am real. Trust your feelings.**  
"You are free to go," Asami said in a commanding voice. "The seal is disabled."  
The boy's hand went to the mark on his throat. "Oh?" The boy shrugged and his face grew redder. "Um….Aki-hito brings refreshment, if you require it."  
Asami frowned at the continued use of the common slave tradition of referring to oneself in the third person. He never liked the tradition, and coming from his lover's lips hurt even worse. The boy offered him a cup full of some clear liquid. He sniffed at it and then drank. The liquid cooled his warm throat.  
"It's not what I required," he replied in a formal tone as the container floated to the tray and landed softly with a tiny _click_.  
The boy turned away from him, busily fiddling with the containers and the tray. "What do you require?"  
Asami inhaled. Aki-hito inhaled.  
**I want you.**  
"Aki-hito…is afraid," he muttered.  
"Yes….I _know _you are," Asami whispered, his mouth barely moving but the boy Aki-hito shuddered in answer, the container rattling in his hands. Aki-hito's fear manifested as a tiny faceless orb floating out of his head, pulsing and then exploding quietly in a puff of acrid smelling smoke in his face. "But it's not me you fear."  
Aki-hito gave a shy smile in the corner of his mouth. "No, Aki-hito is not afraid of you."  
**Calm yourself, little one. Just feel my touch.**  
Aki-hito inhaled again, his shoulders rising and falling while trying to release the emotions holding his powers back. Remind me how.  
Asami sent out tiny tendrils of light, gliding across the air currents until it touched Aki-hito's slender neck which faintly pulsed with the (hopefully disabled) restraining mark. Aki-hito inhaled again and leaned his head back. His breath calmed as Asami's soothing power reassured him.  
Asami felt like he moved against him, touching him for real. Each tendril a finger reaching under the boy's drab looking clothes borrowed from the Third-Eye. It hung like a sack around his slender body. But he easily found Aki-hito's chest and closing his eyes, touched the places that made the boy gasp audibly. His nipples rounded into a point and he felt the boy's anxiety for a moment until the feeling yielded to Asami's touch.  
"The Order will chase you down," he whispered.  
"You're worries are misguided, Aki-hito." He felt his eyes grow hard. "I no longer hold their allegiance, so what they do is of no consequence to us."  
"Aki-hito doesn't miss the robes." The boy reached back with his own faint power, caressing a tender on Asami's cheek. Asami felt a mutter of appreciativeness leave his lips.  
"Merchant Asami…at your service." He bowed much like he used to, when he served another different master.  
He was his _own_ master now.  
Aki-hito's face warmed with the scent of their combined arousal. Asami licked the air, catching it on his tongue, his own emotions tightening with each soft touch. He took a deep, even breath, Aki-hito's clean scent dissipating the stale room.  
"The Aki-hito I know is still in there, right?" He asked as he closed his eyes and concentrated.  
_**I sense a closed door. **_  
_I'd rather not share what they did. It will only redden your eyes._  
**Open it for me.**  
"The Hutts did train me well but Aki-hito is tougher than Aki-hito looks." Aki-hito's fear pulsed in waves as Asami continued to caress him with his power alone. He had wedged himself against a bookcase as his body echoed with bad memories, shuddering every time Asami touched him with his mind. The bad memories leaked out and invaded Asami's thoughts.  
His hands clenched for a moment, a sense of static floating down his arms. He felt angry as the thoughts invaded, opening parts of his memories he had closed long ago.  
_They betrayed you too._  
He stumbled, his eyes growing weary and wanting to close. He could feel the dark coming at him, shutting off the lights one by one until only the red light from a nearby droid remained.  
_Don't fear the dark._  
Aki-hito turned and Asami the boy's glowing eyes flickered in the dark like the reverent flames of his planet, defiant and unwavering, still guarding the heart of a boy. A single tear escaped and rolled down his cheek. Aki-hito sniffed.  
"Yes. You are tougher than you look." Asami's collected the boy and scooped him up with a flick of his hand. He hovered quietly before falling into Asami's waiting arms. He felt warm.  
"That's cheating." His arms fell around Asami's neck and he burrowed his head into Asami's neck. Asami ruffled his tangled hair that smelled of a recent scrubbing.  
"It's useful, admit it." He said. He inhaled Aki-hito's distinct scent and the light years and the time apart melted.  
"Mmm…" was the last coherent thing out of Akihito's mouth, his mind calm now as their power merged together. He felt his heart flutter against him as Asami smothered him with a kiss, both their life forces connecting and pulling away, slowly intertwining. The air cooled and grew warmer as he gathered his power from the Force around them.  
The Force binding them together….  
….and the forces trying to rip them apart.  
_END?_


End file.
